Stars in the Mirror
by Ganimyde
Summary: Loki contemplates his place in the world. (Pre-movie, no spoilers)


**Title**: The Stars in the Mirror

**Characters**: Loki

**Genre**: General

**Rating**: G, with some dark themes

**Spoilers**: None

**Marvel-Universe**: Pre-movie for _Thor_ (_Thor_ I). (Mentions of Freya from canonical Norse mythos, but not necessary to know her backstory.)

**Summary**: Loki reflects on his life at current, and where it might lead.

**Notes**: This is my first Marvel-based fic, so try not to judge it too harshly. This story came about after watching _Thor_, as I was drawing a corresponding image.

+ Odin in this fic is painted as a harsh personality, because my personal take on Odin comes from what's implied in the movie, and a bit of myth: he treated Loki poorly because it was all a massive plot of his, to get everything he's always wanted.

* * *

These fingers are long. They are thin. They are not made for war, like the mortals who fight, nor are they worn by the battle of skin against pommel like my brother's. It is not that I have not held blades, that I do not lash the skin of my vessel with the hide of an animal, with the leather of a whip or horse's reigns.

They are bony, too. Like they might betray me and break at any time.

And they have. Certain others have made sure of that.

He turns over his hand, to bare the palm. It shakes slightly, as he holds it in the air. Light scars criscross skin-in the valleys of the palm, on the hills of knuckles and heel.

Defensive wounds.

Shameful things.

He quickly closes his hand into a fist. Like that, the knuckles look big, but...whiter. His hand is not thick with muscle like the others', not topped with blunt, stubby fingers that rip meat at every meal. Not dark with tan either, from labors of adventuring nor training under the sun.

No, they are white, pale from lack of exposure to that sun. They called him the Dark One, the Shadow, the one with the dark hair. Yet he was also paler than the rest of them-pale like snow. Like their enemies. And no matter how much time he spent baking under the sun to look like them, he never seemed to grow any darker.

Once, he had experimented and cast a spell, to darken his skin. They had said, "Ah, any darker, and you will finally disappear."

"Finally melting into the shadows you love so much?"

"I think they're beautiful," he whispers to himself. "They are good hands." _They are good shadows._

He is silent then, trying not to think. But the thoughts come anyway: what good are his hands if they have nothing to hold?

Well, that was not entirely true. These hands have books to hold. They hold a book and cherish it. They turn pages and do not rip them. They write flourishing script: making art of letters and poetry of word. They write runes and spells, that do anything from breathe life into barren lands to build mountains. These hands pluck a flower as easily as stroke the gains of its petals.

He likes these things. But what is the point, when books, when flowers, cannot cherish him as well?

Or...hold him, back.

Loki runs his hands over his hair and sighs, hiding his face in his hands, resting his weight on his elbows. His face reddens-the only time it darkens. The only time he resembles the fire by which his family, his people, lives.

But were they really his people, if he is second son? Are they his people, if they do not celebrate him?

If they do not want him?

Long hands part to cup his so-white temples, thin strands of obsidian touching softly his fingers as they move from skin to hair. The room is dark and quiet, more like a cave than mansion. The city sits below the windows of this tower; the stars, above it.

The galaxy's bright gems, ever-present, wash across the sky in hundreds of colors humans cannot even see. They glimmer on the horizon, far beyond reach, like diamonds set in the sky by some Titan's hand. They hang, hundreds of thousands of them together, like a group of children that has never known sorrow. They laugh together, joyous sounds, but they are so very tiny, and so very far away. He's never understood why the beautiful things must be so far away from him.

He takes a breath, running his hands over his hair, down his neck, only to return them as a cradle to his head.

The world around him in this room is very big, but so very dark and bare. He could run forever and never reach them. Whatever he _is_, he is not one that can coerce the power of stars.

A few small candles are the companion stars to the black hole that is himself. They sit around him, move when he wants them to, and bow to his breath. They do not speak, except to cast shadows.

They are part of the vanity top upon which he rests his elbows; it is dark wood beneath him, grains like rivers glimmering in soft yellow. A mirror set atop the wood broadcasts his image back to him, even though he does not look at it. It stands as it ever does: an oval of reflective glass, firmly trapped in ripples of carved wood that look like ravens. He did not ask for this to be his. It was a gift, with a note: _Dark wood, for a dark soul_. _Look upon yourself and know what you have done._

He shines in the candlelight, but not like his brother. His skin shines like ice; his hair glitters with frozen bits of light that are cold when looked upon. He shines like their enemies: by reflecting warmth. First Son, he shines by being a welcome home for light. He absorbings it, and it gladly sits atop his golden hair and proudly glistens.

_It is a gift,_ they had said about the mirror, trapped in a frozen relief of wooden ravens trying to escape some dark lands. It was made of wood that had been varnished in blood. _Take it_.

_It is a cursed thing_, he said. They flinched.

Odin did not.

_It is a gift, _the king insisted. _You cannot give back a gift._

_Then to whom can I pass on this 'gift,' Father. Who is next in line for this 'gift' of lovely Freya's._

_You cannot give back a curse,_ the King had said. _You can only break it._

Eyes draw along swirling lines, following carvings to mirror's edge. He fears to look, but what can a reflection do to validate itself but look?

His breath is harsher, and it gutters a candle. Shadows splash over him, suddenly obscuring half his face.

He is not so substantial as these shadows that greedily paint themselves over him, in place of his existence. Shadows can swallow one up, but reflections-they flutter and break, the moment their surface is rippled. The moment the golden sun walks by, he burns to nothing.

_I am just a reflection of you_. _That is why I am pale and dark._

If he broke, he might be nothing at all.

He looks into his eyes.

"Such pretty green eyes," he whispers, a finger reaching towards the mirror. In the reflection, his fingers rest on a red cheek, just below the eye.

He hopes-_wishes_-someone will say that to him, someday. He's dreamed of it, over and over, when he is tired, and it is the only way of comfort his heart knows.. And it feels good in dreams, to be touched. But when he wakes, he cries, because those in the world outside his dreams tell him he has no heart.

He wants, though, his dream: some girl, some boy, smiling fondly at him, in that way they do his brother. The eyes that glimmer like the twinkling stars. The hope for touch, for attention from someone "good." Someone powerful and wanted. The desire in their eyes, in their breath and their bodies, to hold and be held, and to do stupid things like whisper inanities and kill some flowers and give them to each other.

He wants to be desired. He wants someone to like him so much they cannot speak. Sometimes, his dreams reflect reality: He confesses. The other frowns, after a hopeful look from Loki, and a fleeting touch from slender, inferior fingers that so like their books. Or, they smile. He reaches out for a touch-and then they laugh, smacking his cold hand away, showing the others in the room how easily they can trick The Trickster's heart.

But sometimes, just sometimes, the dreams are kind, and they do not laugh. He is kissed. And both smile afterwards.

And it would be warm. In his dreams, warmth does not hurt. He has heard this is the case for everyone else.

His is not sure why he is different. He likes cold, like their enemies. And he likes books, like the Midguardians so base.

Just two more possible reasons why his father does not cherish him.

The normal denizens of Asguard run from him in fear, hiding in doorways and hissing words. The Heroes and people in the court hold some of that fear as well, or hide affront at his existence by squared shoulders and unwelcomed gazes. There was no one here that wanted gentility. They feared it, really, the notion that their bruises might not be the easiest way to happiness. But, he keeps thinking, if they look, really look, they might find the wonder of his way one day, and thank him for it.

Freya wouldn't even _look _at him. Well, Freya doesn't have eyes for anyone but her brother, but all the Prettiest Woman has for the Shadow is disdain, moreso than for the others. She went out of her way to make sure it happened. Like with this mirror: _"If you want me to look, do it for me."_

Was he that ugly, that he deserved only cruelty, for looking her way? He didn't think she was all that pretty, but everyone else did. _Forgive me for trying to be one of you._

He is smarter than all of them. He knows it, and they do not debate it. But it is not spoken of: it does not matter in his life but as a mark against him, because it is not a point of pride. It is a point of mistrust. It makes him "other."

_But I am from your king. Do you not love everything the cherished Odin gives to your world?_

It is a gift, to make him keenly aware of things. It is a curse, that gives no answers.

He has tried to dumb himself down. To say stupid things, to talk on their level. To laugh with them-or try to. _Pretend _to, because you had to be convincing or the brutish would feel insulted, and throw punches. Or dump beer on you. Or strip your clothes off with jives until you faked a good enough laugh at your own humiliation.

Because somehow, that makes you one of them: To be stripped bare, body and soul, before the people that had come to glory before you.

They would humiliate you, and then they would love you. This is the love available to Second Son. The scraps tossed to him as a group's joke or drunken bit of pity.

He is smart, and cannot turn it off. He has tried to speak the language of simpletons once or twice; sometimes for extended periods, as a child, when not so many eyes were on him. Even if someone did take notice-his efforts to please often went unnoticed as a youngling, because no one expected them-it never made him feel good. He would go away feeling sick, fake. They might have acknowledged his behavior positively for once, but then it was _he_ who felt a sense of betrayal: it was not _him _that was acting, but the one they _expected_. And that felt even worse than betraying them.

He does not quite understand why, despite all he knows, but the pain of going unrecognized, or rejected, is a sharp pain, that makes him want to curl up and hide, alone. Though at the same time he wants to cling to someone. Yet, the pain of being someone he is not, no matter how much love pretending got him, is a dull, insistent pain, heavy like a rock that had been put in place of his chest. He liked neither. The one was just added grief, pain from a rock that he put upon himself, and which threatens to break him. He wonders if his brother could have smashed that rock to pebbles. He would be cheered for it, no doubt. But his brother had never had to pretend to be someone he was not.

That was exactly why Thor could break that rock, and Loki could chip off only pieces.

Thor had said to him in a candid moment once, as children: "You're smarter than me. You try to be better than me. I don't like it. Why can't you just be like us? I thought you wanted to be like the rest of us."

_I do_, he had wanted to say.

"Why can't you all be like me?" he asked instead.

"Because no one likes you."

Thor was Elder. Thor was Golden. Thor was the crown prince, and strapping, and can out-drink the rest, which really was what was going to gain him the respect for kingship. His arms will allow him to keep it.

Loki has no friends that will help him win or keep the throne. He does not even have a purpose. He is the Master of Magic, a position made up for him so he will be complacent, so he will have enough respect to be bribed into not rebelling. It has accomplished neither.

He is almost a man now, and has nowhere to go. He holds a position at the top of a ladder of one. He oversees a discipline with no acolytes. He could do nothing, and be ignored. He could do something, and be ignored. Irrelevancy was peaceful, a Midguardian philosopher had once said. But what young man-even him, the worthless raven-liked _that_ sort of peace? Especially when all he wanted was to be touched...

His father seemed to accept him...at times. Odin confused him more times than not. He would tell Thor to try, to excel, yet be more level-headed and less bloodthirsty. Yet to Loki, who was all these things, he would give not even a nod of approval.

_It does not matter how good you are. You are not the one I wanted to do these things._

Thor was the one that needed people to like him: for his future, for the future of Asguard. Thor's greatness needed Loki to hide.

Maybe that's why their father gave them the same look when Loki tried and Thor did not. It was possible that Odin disliked Loki simply because he did not look the part. He did not look like Odin, or his wife, and Thor did. Thor fit the idea of what Odin wanted in a son. Loki did not, so the man rejected him. It was a very Human sentiment, that sort of thing, and Odin seemed smarter than that. But...would he himself be so disappointed if he took to another dark body and created a child that was bright and shining?

Gods did not always look like their parents, but often they did: they looked however the elements _felt_ when they came together. But Loki was so unlike either parent...what terrible thing had Odin thought of when Loki was conceived? What black-hearted day had his mother had, full of disappointement and sorrow? Sometimes, he wondered if he was a bastard of Odin's, god-blood mixed with some dark human mud, and they just forgot to tell him.

He thinks about if it is true, sometimes. And if it is, one day, they will laugh, just like the dreams of kisses.

_Odinson_. That is what he calls himself. That is what Odin _lets_ him call himself.

_That's what I am, isn't it? Odin's son?_

He does not enjoy drunkenness, though laughter and drinking seem the only rules for Asguardian citizenship. The only father-son understanding he and Odin seem to have is that Odin does not particularly encourage him to drink, and he likes it that way. Loki speaks too true, when he is free, and it incites the others. However true his ideas may be, moments like that, they are expose him: it is _him _that speaks, and not his tricks, and then they see what they have done to him. He cannot have that-being out-of-control. If he wants the world to spin, he can just think about his problems too much. Like now.

He sits back, taking in his body-at least as visible in the mirror. A strangely complete apathy comes, as his eyes track over curves: of skin stretched tight over thin shoulders; of a thin neck and green eyes; and long, dark hair that curls slightly at the ends. As his chest, almost undefined, raises and lowers as he breathes.

It is said in Asguard that you cannot be a king without scars. So why not him?

White lines cross him, whiter than the rest of him. Over his forearms especially, but on his shoulders too; and a knick here and there on neck and collarbone. A large wound lays across his chest. Some are gotten from combat on Thor's adventures. Others are from Thor and his friends, or anyone else that wanted a go at him, back when he was too young to have defenses against that sort of thing.

_Yes, I am smoke. I am shadow. It is the only defense I have against you. To disappear out of your grasp entirely_.

No matter what magic he creates, or digs up from old records, or learns from strange lands, these scars do not heal. They do not disappear.

They are not a badge of pride, that bring cooing breaths of admiration and hands happy to worship his skin.

_To hide in the shadows, untouched, that is the only way I can continue to be me. The light will strip me bare one of these days, and I will have nothing left._

They are memories. Old memories, of wounds. And they will not disappear from his skin until he puts the pain to rest. But there is no way to do that, because there is no one to whom to show them.

_Not that anyone-you or I-like me._

He closes his eyes with a sigh. It is dark, restful, understandable. He reaches to the familiar candle wick and snuffs out the little star, letting it burn him as it will before he absorbs its death throes into his skin. Unlike his brother, he stands by the lives he takes as they cease to be, rather than blowing out a star simply with his stride and not noticing the trail of smoke left behind him.

The last of the smoke draws into him, and he breathes clean air. With eyes closed, he hopes his dreams will not be nightmares, this night. His day has had enough of them.

The stars he can reach put to rest for the night, he wraps himself in the pelts of dead animals and finally sleeps. It is a land of darkness he slips into when he dreams: his friend, his home. His one and only faithful subject, which does not ask to give him scars in order to be lead by him.


End file.
